IP hoarding.
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Buy studio that already made successful game
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Delete studio
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People still buy game
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Profit
- Massive tax write-off because of the studio's "failure"
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Eliminating the competition
When there are no other games at all, the company with one shitty live service game will be king!
It's also a tried and true strategy that brought Microsoft to the spot it is now. Evil and corrupt, but very effective. Only eee (embrace, extend, extinguish) is even more insidious because it requires companies to play the long con.
Then again in 2024, I automatically assume "con" first until I see evidence to the contrary.
If this is the name of the game, it's dumb. It's not like they lined the Devs up along a wall. They'll still be able to serve other companies with their talent since Microsoft just cut their leads.
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Even game devs have mortgages to pay and many in the industry are struggling
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I didn't mean to imply the strategy was smart, just that is the end goal of the MBA parasite hive mind
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Embrace, Expend, Extinguish.
It's Extend. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
I mean, technically, "expend" is exactly what Microsoft is doing in this situation
Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate.
Learn the terminology, Nate.
I don't think MS doing any expand related with games
That's why I said "expend" rather than "expand".
It's called "monopolize gaming without paying for developers". The beauty of it is, if you ruin all of modern gaming and buy out all the existing hits, you can shove in monetization and project insane profits
At least until indie gaming takes over, your stock price will go to the moon
until indie gaming takes over
People want to play what's popular, to feel part of a group.
And there's thankfully usually a popular indie darling of the season to do that. Valheim, Vampire Survivors, Lethal Company, Among Us, Dave the Diver, etc. etc.
Something unique that can be easily streamed in most cases.
Fucking the video game industry is what it's called
It just works
Its okay because the PS5 also has no games
Played Horizon Forbidden West on PC and it's such a grind fest. What's even the point. Not sure why it gets such good reviews, except for how pretty it is. High hopes for God of War Ragnarok, though.
It gets good reviews because it's fun to play. The game is good at its core: you have to scan machines, aim at weak spots, move a lot in the battle to avoid damage, choose right weapons, or you can override a machine and enjoy the show, there are so many options and challenges. Besides, let's not underestimate the value of good graphics. They make the world nicer, more enjoyable, make you want to come back and play again. I understand that this game is not for everyone though.
Everyone seems to think there is some master evil plan behind all this, but I think there's a simpler explanation. They fucked up.
Microsoft made $158b gross profit year, which was a 14% increase over the previous year.
As a comparison, General Motors’ revenue was $170b. Microsoft made almost as much in profit as GM took in totality.
Closing the studios maybe will save Microsoft $0.1b, so potentially increase their profit line by 0.05%.
So hard to think of it as anything other than a middle finger to the devs. Even if it were a mistake, they could afford to let it cook longer like with Rare and redeem the “mistake”.
It's stripping out the copper wiring for cash. Buy a game studio, fire all the employees. Now their paychecks can be served up as profit to shareholders. Move all the files to your servers, it's your "Intellectual Property". Sell off the computers and the desks and anything else not nailed down. Do they own the building? Great, sell that too! Or, better yet, rent it out!
Only works if the liquidated assets are worth more than the money spent acquiring them, which usually is not the case.
The liquidated assets are just a cherry on top, what they're going for is getting rid of the competition and hoarding IP for usual capitalist hoarder mentality reasons.
The reasons you'd ever want an Xbox used to be Halo and Fable. Now it's, uh, I dunno, does anyone care about Starfield?
Gamepass is great. It's nice to sit down on the couch and boot up a random game via streaming. Reminds me of Blockbuster in a sense.
You can do the same thing on PC, but Xbox is idiot-proof and at the end of the day I just don't have the energy to deal with anything more difficult than that.
I’m agree, but game pass has been offering meh value in the long run for me. Sure there are a few new titles, but once your run through your backlog it’s just ok. Problem is that Xbox lacks the blockbusters that appeal to the masses this generation, coupled with an utterly confusing naming scheme that I still don’t understand. What Xbox should I buy? No idea, because the names mean nothing.
Now the reason is that you're too broke for a PC but still wanna play new games that are on PC, but not dirty Nintendo or Playstation games.
"Too broke to play PC" is a vanishing argument IMO. People have been saying that forever, to be fair, but given how bad Xbox and Playstation have gotten I don't anyone who's actually into gaming purchasing a new one today. Maybe used, that might make sense if it was really cheap.
A budget gaming PC can check out at slightly over 600 now. PcPartPicker has two recommended builds priced right at 600, though honestly there might be even cheaper ways to arrive at that level of perfromance. Compared to 300-400 for the less garbage Xbox, and there's not much argument to lock someone into the xbox's ecosystem vs something you can upgrade for much less.
Now I think it's a different matter if it's a hand-me-down or given for free. There's no reason not to do that.
I gave my last console away and got a friend of mine into gaming, then helped them build a decent PC when they actually wanted something new.
I absolutely love Starfield. I have something like 300 hours in it and keep finding new things to do and explore all the time.
Its called being a fucking dumb cunt. These executives and shareholders don't understand what brought people to the Xbox. So there's no way in hell they can ever keep people there. If they wanted to keep the Xbox in the spotlight you should have kept Lionhead alive and not let 343 fuck Halo (which is now on PC anyway so why would I get an Xbox?). There's simply no reason to have one unless you're scared of PCs and want to play some games with your PC friends.
They are buying studios and their IP so no one else can use it, even if they don't use it themselves. It's a strategy to remove competition, they don't care about the industry and the players, they care about money. All these big companies are the same, Microsoft just have the wallet to act on it, avoid them all and buy indie games.
Capitalism
"You know what they should copy? They should copy how to get good games"
-Chad Warden
Unlimited bacon
Or you can subscribe to gamepass for games, unlimited games
Enshittification
i think this might be called "no games"
1st day availability on Gamepass for all AAA games simply isn't a sustainable strategy. They can't give away multiple games with a 9-figure budget along with everything else for the price of the sub.
Hype train gold rush
I think microsoft picked, "games (umlimited games), but no games"
MS bought ABK for its ability to make profits. ABK can't do that if MS "cleans house". It was very effective marketing that made people think MS would shape things up once they get their hands on shitty companies (while also effectively marketing "they would let devs be"). ABK may end up having more influence on Xbox than the other way around.
"they would let devs be" sorry that was a typo, should've said "they would let devs go" my bad
—Phil Spencer probably
